Monday, March 19, 2012

Jess Myers of 1500 ESPN and of Inside College Hockey has this little nugget in his post on Thursday and my first reaction is no thank you.

The Target Center is less than attractive option for hockey and the ice was horrible last time a hockey game was played in there.

Jess Myers 1500 ESPN --- And what about those armies of North Dakota fans, with their team
heading to the new NCHC (with Minnesota Duluth and St. Cloud State) at
the end of next season? For now, it looks as though they could be
heading to Minneapolis, as NCHC officials have reportedly been offered a
sweetheart deal to hold their post-season tournament at Target Center.

Of course, that idea raises several questions about the future. The
initial good news that there would be one or two college post-season
tournaments in the Twin Cities every March is tempered just a bit by
several "yes, but..." factors to consider.

For example, while a Minnesota-Michigan tournament final in St. Paul
in St. Paul would surely be a sought-after ticket, the notion of filling
Xcel Energy Center for a match-up between "new" WCHA teams like
Michigan Tech and Bowling Green has no basis in reality. A title game
featuring Bemidji State or Minnesota State, Mankato might draw a
respectable crowd, but in most years where the Gophers are at Joe Louis,
there will be oceans of good seats available.

And the inadequacy of Target Center as a hockey building is one of
the reasons the North Stars headed to Dallas rather than moving from the
antiquated Met Center to downtown Minneapolis in 1993. A 2010 game
between the Gophers and the Badgers is the only hockey game the building
has hosted in more than a decade.

Personally, I like the option of rotating the tourney between Denver, Colorado Saint Paul, Minnesota and or Omaha, Nebraska. Seriously, unless the Target Center is going to upgrade it's hockey capabilities, more specifically, the ice making capabilities would have to improve quite a bit. That being said, there are better restaurants and bar options in the Target Center area, than around the Xcel Energy Center.